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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Early this past Thursday morning, I conducted a devotion for members of the Kilgore Police Department. Victims’ Services Coordinator Jonathan Latham introduced me to those present, most of whom I think probably already knew me from when I had conducted devotions for them previously. In introducing me, Jonathan said some nice things about me, and who does not like to hear people say nice things about them to other people? Yet, in today’s Gospel Reading for the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany of Our Lord, Jesus speaks a “woe” to those of whom all people speak well, saying instead that we are blessed when people revile us on His account. As we consider that Gospel Reading this morning, we realize that, indeed, “We are blessed when we are reviled on Jesus’s account”.
From last week’s Gospel Reading of St. Luke’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, with its report of Jesus’s providing a miraculous catch of fish and as a result having Peter, Andrew, James, and John follow Him (Luke 5:1-11), we have skipped over some of Jesus’s teaching, a number of His miracles, His calling at least one other disciple, and His choosing twelve apostles (Luke 5:12-6:16). As we heard in this week’s Gospel Reading, when Jesus came down from the mountains with those apostles, He stood on a level place with a great crowd of disciples and a great multitude of apparently others who came to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases. There and then Jesus preached what is often called “The Sermon on the Plain”, of which we heard the beginning today and will hear more next Sunday.
Although undeniably similar to what is usually called “The Sermon on the Mount” in St. Matthew’s Gospel account, for Jesus in all likelihood repeated His teaching in different forms and at various times and places, “The Sermon on the Plain” from St. Luke’s Gospel account is also different, especially with its opening “blessings” uniquely paired with the opposite “woes” (or “curses”), including the notable “woe” on those of whom all people speak well, being treated as their ancestors treated the false prophets, whom they loved (Jeremiah 5:31), in contrast to the true prophets whom their ancestors hated, excluded, reviled, and spurned.
We at Pilgrim right now may feel a little hated, excluded, reviled, and spurned, as we see members leave for various reasons. And yet, given what Jesus says, such treatment should not surprise us. As our congregation upholds God’s law, especially in a society and even in a church body that perhaps does not always do so as it should, and as our congregation faithfully administers the Sacraments in keeping with Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions, we have been, are now, and will continue to be undeservedly reviled, reproached, and upbraided. As a pastor and as people who continue to have a sinful human nature, however, we are likely to fight against such treatment. Our sinful nature lusts against God’s Word and refuses to submit to suffering and to denying ourselves honor among people (Pieper, III:70).
Going back to the blessings and curses that Moses set before God’s people (Exodus 30:11‑20), today’s Psalm (Psalm 1; antiphon: v.2), Old Testament Reading (Jeremiah 17:5-8), and the Gospel Reading all describe the two ways: the way of blessings and the way of curses. By nature we are dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1, 5), and so we cannot initially choose other than the way of curses and so also the temporal and eternal death that result from our evil. But, God the Father calls and thereby enables us to repent: to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust Him to forgive our sin for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ, and to want to do better than to keep on sinning. As we who repent are so poor in Spirit (Matthew 5:3), the Kingdom of God, Jesus says, is ours.
As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 15:1-20), of first importance is that the God-man Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins and mine, that He was buried, and that He was raised from the dead on the third day—all as prophesied by the Old Testament Scriptures and reported by the New Testament Scriptures. Out of God’s great love for us, Jesus lived the sinless life we fail to live, and Jesus died in our place the eternal death that we deserve on account of our sin. More than we will ever be, Jesus was hated, excluded, reviled, and spurned for us. To be sure, not everyone who is poor, hungry, who weeps, or is reviled will necessarily be eternally blessed, just as not everyone who is rich, full, laughing, or spoken well of will necessarily be eternally cursed: the difference is repentance! When we repent, then God forgives our sinful nature and all our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives us through His Word in all of its forms.
Today’s Psalm and Old Testament Reading, with their figures of speech of trees planted by water, remind us that most people can point to the water and Word of Holy Baptism as when their spiritual life began, with God’s giving them new life in Christ at the Font. So Baptized and forgiven, we seek out our pastors to confess privately the sins that we know and feel in our hearts for the sake of the words and touch of individual Holy Absolution, forgiveness at the pastor’s hand as from God Himself. So Absolved, we regularly receive Christ’s Body and Blood with bread and wine and Jesus’s Words in the Sacrament of the Altar. Here, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are satisfied (Matthew 5:6). And, in addition to forgiving our sins and so giving us life and salvation, Christ’s Body and Blood are our food for the way through this life, bringing forth from us the fruits of repentance in keeping with our vocations, and enabling us not only to endure the hating, excluding, reviling, and spurning on His account but, when it happens, also to rejoice and leap for joy, not because we are treated so but because our reward, Jesus says, is great in heaven.
So given life and nourished by God’s Word in all of its forms, especially its sacramental forms, we now can choose to continue to live by following the way of the righteous, the way of blessings, not of curses. We do good works according to our vocations, and we, as individuals and as a congregation, endure the reviling that may come on account of Jesus, such as from our upholding God’s law in the face of a society and church body that may not do so and from our faithfully administering the Sacraments in keeping with Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions. Our essential heavenly “reward” is salvation itself, which we receive not by such works but as a gift by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 6:23; confer Apology to the Augsburg Confession IV:356). But, on the basis of passages such as today’s Gospel Reading, some theologians also say that our different good works “earn” us the “reward” of different degrees of glory in heaven (Pieper, III:52), though we do not know exactly what those are or how they are given (Stephenson, CLD XIII:131). We can say that God brings about a great reversal: from the way that things are, or at least appear to be, now, to the way that things will be then. We consider every phase and activity of our Christian lives, all of our suffering on Jesus’s account, in light of Judgment Day and the glory to be revealed then (Pieper, III:85).
As hard, even with God’s help, as accepting it may be, “We are blessed when we are reviled on Jesus’s account”. By grace through faith in Him, we are forgiven our sins and assured of eternal life. There, we might even say that even Jesus says, those who weep in repentance now will have the last and eternal laugh!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +